How Diamonds Can Chip and How to Prevent It

Tuesday, April 11, 2017

Diamonds are loved for their beauty, their rarity and their durability. A diamonds durability is broken down into three parts, hardness, toughness, and stability. Hardness is how well a gemstone can resist scratches and abrasions. Toughness is how well a gemstone can resist breaking and chipping, and stability is how well a diamond can resist chemical and thermal shock. Diamonds are almost as equally hard as they are stable, but they are not as equally tough which means they can chip.

A diamond can chip or fracture from a hard impact while:

Playing sports

Working out

Cleaning

Gardening or performing other lawn work

It is vital to your diamonds safety that you take it off during rigorous activities. Other ways of preventing a diamond from chipping include, but are not limited to:

Choosing a Quality Cut Diamond

Diamonds with uneven proportions are especially prone to chipping, specifically around the girdle of a diamond. You don’t want the girdle of the diamond to be thin. Ideal cut diamonds are less likely to chip around the diamonds girdle because of their ideal proportions.

Choosing a Setting That Protects the Diamond

There are many types of settings that can help protect your center diamond. Halos, cathedral settings, and bezel settings are all styles of settings that can help protect your diamond.

Getting Your Ring Checked Regularly

When a prong is bent or broken the diamond is no longer secured in the ring, which means it is free to move and knock against other prongs in the ring. This can be a direct cause of chipping. By getting your ring checked regularly you can help prevent it from chipping.

Protecting the Pointy End

The cutlet of a diamond (the pointed end where all of the diamonds facets meet) is also extremely vulnerable to chipping.

Taking all of these points into consideration, diamonds can chip, but it does not mean they will. Diamonds are at the top of the Mohs scale of hardness, which means that they are of the most durable gemstones on earth. By protecting your diamond and getting your ring checked regularly you can prevent possible impacts to your diamond that could result in a chip. Oh, and did we mention clean and checks are free here at Husar’s House of Fine Diamonds?